How America claimed a breathtaking fortune at the bottom of the ocean

Illustration by Javier Palma. Sources: George Rinhart / Getty; The Book Worm / Alamy; Colaimages / Alamy.

It made itself bigger. You’d be forgiven for thinking that America’s continental shelf couldn’t get any bigger. It is, after all, mostly rock, the submerged landmass linking shore and abyss. But in late 2023, after a long and expensive mapping project, the State Department announced that the continental shelf had grown by 1 million square kilometers—more than two Californias. The United States had ample motive to decide that the continental shelf extends farther than it.

By Jack Truesdale
January 25, 2025 | The Atlantic